Congrats to the Alfresco team for their latest release just announced this morning.

In my view, the major highlights in this release are:

• Enhanced team collaboration support with full email-based support for workflow, enabling users to invoke “accept” and “reject” steps simply by clicking on an autogenerated URL in an email. Before 1.3, workflow actions were invoked through the Alfresco web client. Now, it can be done via email — a nice improvement toward seamlessness and ease-of-use
• Improved records management support with activitation of repository rules based on a schedule or a content update, along with DOD 5015.2 content type definititions– representing another important capability to help companies manage/control/retain/archive their business records and achieve 100% compliance. The records that are top of mind in the companies we talk with include those generated by email and messaging, in addition to the standard business records (financial, etc.) that enterprises must control.
• CIFS Kerboros and LDAP Support — further enhancing the seamless support for Microsoft’s file share protocol (CIFS) for enterprise deployments
• Improved support for client and server side customizations, through Javascript support in the server and a pluggable UI in the client

Here’s the full summary from the Alfresco announcement:

Release 1.3 has increased functionality in the areas of:

• Architecture – Benchmark Certification
• Administration – Zero-Time Upgrade for Development Extensions, Full Export
• Customization – Simple Action/Rule Extensions through JavaScript, Simple Extensible UI Dialog Wizard Framework, Meta-data Constraint Management
• Library Services – Document/Folder Cross Linking
• Team Collaboration – Simple Email based Workflow
• Records Management - Rule Activation on Update and Schedule, Soft Delete
• Other – Development SDK

Architecture

• Benchmark Certification – Significant scalability enhancements and benchmark certification representing real customer environments with a focus on multiple cores and processors

Administration

• Zero-Time Upgrade for Development Extensions – Client and server extension framework externalization
• Full Export – Export of whole Repository including types and users. This allows for the duplication of repositories for deployment and offers alternatives for backup and recovery.

Customization

• Server Customization – The primary area to simplify extending the server is in the use of JavaScript to build aspect and action extensions rather than just Java. This makes it possible for even novice programmers to add powerful business logic into the repository for reuse across all clients These can be invoked from rules, through a time based schedule or via a URL
• Client Customization – Open Pluggable UI Framework to dramatically simplify client configuration making possible new application components and AJAX-based interfaces
• Simple Extensible User Interface Dialog Wizard Framework – A type-based dispatcher allows pages, dialogs and wizards to be over-ridden on a content type basis
• Simple Configurable Menu Types and Items - Externalized menu and dialog configuration through XML file configuration. Originally, menus were defined in JSP pages
• Space/Folder Actions – Actions on Spaces/Folders allowing workflows to be performed on folders - which is particularly important for case-based workflow
• Meta-Data Constraint Management – Meta-Data constraints based on values or links to external RDBMS tables
• Dashboard/Template Space Binding – Persistent linking of a template to a space or document

Library Services

• Document Cross Linking – A document, or folder, can be linked to another content object or folder across multiple spaces. A change to a document is reflected across all spaces – Virtual Folders.

Data Management and Transformation Engine

• Configuration of New Content Transformers
• Configure/Extend new Transform Types

Content Contribution

• CIFS Kerberos and LDAP support – Kerberos for authentication token support and LDAP for user and group support

Team Collaboration

• Customizable Email Templates
• Simple Email based Workflow – Embedded URL selection in email for “approve”/”reject” using customized email templates
• Extended email support for changes to documents, records or folders that can be sent to groups

Records Management

Alfresco has added a number of features to manage electronic records to the basic repository functionality. Our intention is to get to the DOD 5015.2 certification later 2006/early 2007. 1.3 adds some critical features:

• Extended Rule Activation – Schedule, content and metadata change based activation. Important for managing retention dates and managing document lifecycles
• Retention and Archival Policies – Soft delete and purge
• DOD 5015.2 Type Definitions
• Fileplan Support – Fileplan, file name and the management of records categories is supported through JavaScript

Click here for pdf version: Alfresco ECM 1.3

Infoworld recently reviewed the Alfresco open source ECM platform:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/15/79206_25TCalfresco_1.html 

The author, Mike Heck, favorably compares Alfresco to the much more expensive Documentum platform — confirming my view that open source ECM has arrived as a serious contender in the ECM marketplace.

Alfresco weighs in at a "Very Good" rating of 8.3, even after getting dinged by the reviewer for lacking the "capability to publish web sites".  This is absolutely true.  Alfresco today is not a web content management (WCM) system, but it's not positioned as one either.  Instead, Alfresco provides a strong content repository for managing the lifecycle of all types of enterprise content, including documents, records, images, digital assets, etc.

Incidentally, complete WCM capability is under development and is slated for release later this year.

Overall, I think the review is well done — providing a concise overview of many of Alfresco's primary features.  I think the review could benefit from a treatment of a few key capabilities that are not addressed, including:

• CIFS emulation support (Microsoft's file share protocol), which allows the Alfresco repository (or any space within it) to look as if it were simply a file share — a major ease-of-use feature that complements the WebDAV support
• Extensible content modeling type system, allowing users/adminstrators to easily define custom metadata to accurately characterize their content and/or define links and associations among content items
• Dashboard views, provided by a built-in templating engine that allows users/administrators to create custom views of the repository contents 

By helping our clients deploy Alfresco, we've found these features to be quite useful toward creating/managing/collaborating on documents (CIFS makes it real easy), finding information faster (content models allows faster search), and getting work done faster (dashboard views).   So any review of an ECM system should include these types of capabilities.

We just published a new white paper:

"Seven Keys to Radically Improve Document Management and Team Collaboration with Open Source Solutions"

Get it by clicking here.

Learn how we helped Swansea improve productivity with Alfresco by clicking here.

Welcome to Rivet Logic's blog, where we will discuss open source enterprise content management and portal technologies and how they can be used to achieve dramatically improved business results.